The highly successful Mission STS-74 comes to a smooth conclusion as
the orbiter Atlantis returns to Kennedy Space Center. Atlantis
touched down on Runway 33 of the Shuttle Landing Facility at 12:01:27
p.m. EST, November 20. The final Space Shuttle flight of 1995 marked
the second docking of the U.S. Space Shuttle to the Russian Space
Station Mir. To simplify the remaining five Shuttle-Mir docking
currently scheduled, the five astronauts on Atlantis attached a
Russian-built Docking Module to Mir during the eight-day mission. Two
solar arrays were stowed on the module, which will serve as a
permanent extension to the Kristall docking port on the station.
Atlantis' crew and the three cosmonauts on Mir also transferred
materials to and from the station. Leading the STS-74 crew is
Commander Kenneth D. Cameron; James D. Halsell Jr. is the pilot; the
three mission specialists are Jerry L. Ross, William S. "Bill"
McArthur Jr. and Chris A. Hadfield, who represents the Canadian Space
Agency. This was the 27th end-of-mission landing at KSC in Shuttle
program history. The Shuttle-Mir dockings are one aspect of Phase 1
activities leading the way toward the international space station; the
United States, Russian, Canada, Japan and a group of European nations
have joined together to build the orbiting outpost in space later this
decade.
(Photo Release Date: 11/20/95
)

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